Canadian Prisons Diversify

Sick of paying $65 per hour for tattoos? Here's a solution: go to Canada and get busted.

Rueters has reported that a prison in Canada has implemented an experimental program where inmates can get tattooed by a fellow inmate in a supervised session for $5/hr ($4.25US). The program is aimed at fighting the spread of disease in prisons through the sharing of makeshift needles.

Prison officials say that the occurrence of Hepatitis B and C is 30% higher than outside prison walls, and the occurrence HIV is 10% higher than in public.

Programs such as these are already successful in the US for mitigating the spread of HIV and Hepatitis. Needle exchange programs in counties declared to be of "high morbidity"-- a term used by groups battling the spread of HIV to identify areas where the transmission rate of HIV is dangerously higher than the national average-- have proven successful in drastically lowering the rate of new HIV transmissions.

Needle exchange programs have been markedly controversial since inception. Critics lambaste needle exchange programs, accusing them of promoting IV drug use, or at the very least making it more socially acceptable.

It may appear to some people that these groups are just dispensing illegal drug paraphernalia, but what is actually happening is that they are giving IV drug users a choice: they no longer need to share needles. The point that the naysayers seem to miss is that junkies are junkies, and they will continue to be junkies until they are ready to quit-- and until then, they will share needles, if they have a limited supply. The sharing of needles is the main issue. The sharing of needles is one of the most common methods of HIV transmission. Needle exchange programs have the right idea. If they can reduce or eliminate the sharing of needles among the IV drug user community, they can dramatically reduce the number of new HIV infections.

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